had its seaward edge protected by a belt of sand-dunes, just as the coast of Holland is at the present day.
This submerged forest in the middle of the North Sea has been described fully, for it raises a host of interesting questions, that require much more research before we can answer them. A sunken land-surface 60 feet and more below the sea at high-tide corresponds very closely with the lowest of the submerged forests met with in our dock-excavations. But if another bed of peat occurs at a depth of 130 or 140 feet at the Dogger Bank, this would be far below the level of any recently sunk land-surface yet recognised in Britain. Also, if the slabs of very modern-looking peat, containing only plants and insects still living in Britain, come from such a depth, out of what older deposit can the Pleistocene mammals, such as elephant, rhinoceros, and hyaena, have been washed?
These questions cannot be answered conclusively without scientific dredging, to fix the exact positions and depths of the outcrops of moorlog. When we remember also that beneath a submerged forest at about the depth of the Dogger Bank there was found at Tilbury, in the Thames Valley, a human skeleton; and that both human remains and stone implements have been discovered in similar deposits elsewhere, we can point to the Dogger Bank as an excellent field for scientific exploration.
The Dogger Bank once formed the northern edge
